David Healey - Rebel Train

“They hauled out guns and decided they weren’t going to put up with the likes of us. They were Yankee veterans, Colonel, acting brave.”

Percy nodded. Nearby, Hazlett sneered, as if Flynn had failed somehow.

“All right,” Percy said bitterly. “What’s done is done. Let’s try not to shoot anyone else. I hadn’t counted on there being so many people on board.”

“They look just like cattle,” Hazlett muttered in disgust, staring back at the passengers watching from the windows.

Percy wasn’t finished. He turned to Flynn with a steely glare. “And I better not catch you drinking any goddamn whiskey, Flynn. You sure as hell set off that conductor back there — you could have put us all in danger. I know you were sent to keep an eye on me, Sergeant, but I’m in command of this raid, and you’ll do as I tell you.”

“I hear you.”

That was as good a dressing down as he’d ever had in his previous short career as a soldier. Flynn realized he still had the whiskey bottle in his coat pocket, and he pulled it out and pitched it away. He knew trying to explain to Percy how the bottle had ended up in his pocket was pointless. Flynn glanced at Hazlett, and noticed the sergeant was grinning.

Forbes watched with greedy eyes as the bottle landed with a thud in the bushes, unbroken.

“We could put all the passengers off right here, sir,” Pettibone suggested.

“They would have the Yankees onto us in no time,” Flynn said. “This is a settled area and we’re sitting on one of the major roads out of Washington City. There’s another road just three miles south of here that carries all the traffic going west out of Baltimore. Cavalry passes all the time on both these roads.”

“Flynn’s right,” Percy said. “Nobody but the passengers knows who we are, so let’s keep it that way for a while.”

“We could just let Flynn shoot them,” Hazlett said. His gap-toothed smile made him look more wicked than usual.

Percy ignored him. “Let’s get moving. If Flynn’s right about this road we don’t want to meet any soldiers, so the less time spent sitting here, the better. Forbes, borrow that big Bowie knife off Hazlett and cut the wires on those poles.” Percy pointed out the two sets of telegraph wires, one running east-west, the other north-south. “Cut the one going west first, since that’s the way we’re going. Pettibone, you help him. The rest of us are going to pull up some rails.”

“With what?” Flynn asked.

“With … hell, I don’t know. Our fingers if we have to.” Percy turned toward the engine and shouted, “Wilson, you got and pry bars in there?”

The engineer bent down, reappeared with a hammer in his hand. “That’s all there is, Colonel. This and some small tools for the locomotive.”

Percy swore. Wrenching an iron rail free of the cross ties was no easy task, especially without a pry bar to give a man leverage. “This is a fine time to be thinking about tools.”

“Let’s just cut the wires and be gone,” Flynn said. “Otherwise we’ll only be wasting time. All we have to pull up those rails is rocks and our hands, and that’s not enough. Trust me, Colonel. I’ve put a few rails down in my time so I know something about pulling them up.”

Forbes and Pettibone went off to cut the telegraph wires. Forbes was a slightly built man, no more than five-feet, five-inches tall and 110 pounds. Perfect size for a cavalryman, and even better for shimmying up telegraph poles.

Percy turned to Hazlett. “Sergeant, you keep an eye out up and down this road for any Yankee cavalry. No shooting, if you can help it.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll shout if I see anyone.” He looked toward the dirt road which climbed steeply on both sides of the river. “There should be enough dust to give us fair warning.”

“Good. Flynn, you come with me.”

Together, Flynn and the colonel started down the length of the train. Both men were aware of the passengers watching them out the windows.

“How’s Benjamin holding up?” Percy asked.

“He’s a bit green to this sort of work, but he’ll be all right.”

“That’s why I put him with you.” Percy seemed to have forgotten all about reprimanding Flynn over the whiskey.

“Why not with Hazlett?” Flynn thought he already knew the answer, but he asked the question anyway.

“Hazlett is not an easy man to work with,” Percy said. “We go back long before the war. He’s a good man to have in a fight, though. Sometimes the best soldiers are the same men you’d want watching your back in a tavern brawl. You of all people should know that, Flynn. I sense you’ve had some experience in such matters.”

“ Och , I’ve cleared out a room or two in my day.”

But tavern brawls weren’t Percy’s style, Flynn knew, and he couldn’t help wondering why Percy seemed so loyal to someone like Hazlett. The colonel was tough in his own way, but Flynn could see that he was also a romantic. What some might call a “Southern Gentleman.” Virginia was full of men like that who got caught up in the Confederacy’s hopeless cause.

Hazlett was none of those things. He was what well-bred Southerners like Percy called “white trash,” that class who caught and whipped the runaway slaves or maybe made moonshine out in the woods. The man was downright vicious.

As if reading Flynn’s mind, Percy went on, “I suppose I should tell you, Flynn, that Hazlett is married to my cousin. The less illustrious branch of the Percys, but family nonetheless.”

“I thought it might be something like that.” Flynn suppressed a smile. He was sure now that Percy did not like Hazlett, but only tolerated him. Blood ran thicker than water, and Percy would be too much of a gentleman to allow personal feelings to overrule the Southern obligations of family. “He may be your cousin’s wife, but as soon as this raid is over, I’m going to shoot him.”

Percy laughed. “If he doesn’t shoot you first, you mean.”

“We’ll see about that.”

The grin left Percy’s face. “You know I’m doing the best I can with this damned raid, Flynn. Norris sent us on a mission that’s damn near impossible.”

“Some might even call it a fool’s errand,” Flynn added. “But here we are, and if you don’t mind me saying so, Colonel, if anyone can pull this off it’s you.”

“Does this mean you’re not going to shoot me?”

“You don’t have to watch your back with me,” Flynn said. “There’s some things I am, and some I’m not. One of those is a backstabber.”

“If I thought you were the kind of man who would do that, I would have had Hudson toss you in the Potomac River once we were halfway across — or maybe I would have shot you myself as soon as we got into Maryland.”

“At this point, Colonel, I think we’re all going to have enough trouble getting home alive with Abraham Lincoln that we can pretty much forget about any need to shoot each other. Besides, it’s pretty clear to me you intend to see this thing through.”

“I do.”

“You know, I always thought the Irish were the craziest people in the world, but I was wrong. You Virginians have us beat.”

They hurried toward the last car. Hudson jumped down from the baggage car to join them. Lieutenant Cater and Private Cook were on the ground, waiting, revolvers in their hands.

“Anything going on in there?” Percy asked.

“Quiet as a church, sir,” Cater said. “I reckon President Lincoln has slept through all the ruckus — if there’s even anyone in there.”

The car that supposedly held Lincoln resembled a miniature fortress on wheels. It was painted black and well-built, but lacked any ornament that befitted a president. The windows were placed high up the sides of the car, designed to let light in rather than to let passengers look out. There was one door made of thick oak and bound with iron that opened onto a small platform skirted with a plain iron railing. Lincoln and his bodyguard — he must surely have at least one other man inside with him — could make an effective last stand firing down from the high windows. The car’s walls, sturdy as they were, could not have withstood return fire from Springfield rifles, but against the less heavy caliber revolvers carried by the raiders, those walls would be like iron.